In the words of Daniel Negreaneau...blibbity blabbity

Christopher Hitchens would like you to think he is an intelligent man. He wants to be thought of as educated and insightful. Unfortunately, what he best portrays is an angry, spiteful, hateful little man, and that he does very, very well. You often hear "the left" complain about the hatefulness of Ann Coulter...she ain't got nothing on Hitchens.



A fine example would be his error-filled critique of Hannukkah.



He starts out by demonstrating his lack of insight by maligning a bit of "folk wisdom" and somehow missing the point...yes, some people who had candles were too lazy or cheap to light them just as today some people are too lazy or cheap to turn on their electric lights...but both those in "olden times" and people today who have those traits will still malign the darkness within which they sit. But that makes no sense to Hitchens.



Not content with attacking ancient wisdom, Hitchens goes on to demonstrate his ignorance of history. He writes, "About a century and a half before the alleged birth of the supposed Jesus of Nazareth ..."



His intent is pretty clearly to insult and deride anyone foolish enough to believe a person such as Jesus could possibly exist. Of course, he then goes on to talk about the benefits wrought by Alexander the Great. What he neglects to mention is the available evidence for the two is heavily in favor of Jesus of Nazareth. If you were only going to believe one of the 2 figures existed and went strictly on available historical evidence there is no way a person would select Alexander over Jesus. The existence of both has been established beyond any reasonable doubt...for those with integrity and who have bothered to do research. On the other hand, for people like Hitchens they can say anything they want and woe betide the person who questions their credibility just because they are wrong on one of their key examples. His ignorance and arrogance combine to show foolishness.



His cynicism and bitterness reaches new lows, however, as he continues his tirade.



Had it not been for this no-less imperial event, we would never have had to hear of Jesus of Nazareth or his sect—which was a plagiarism from fundamentalist Judaism—and the Jewish people would never have been accused of being deicidal "Christ killers." Thus, to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism's bastard child in the shape of Christianity.



I would be fascinated in which way Christianity is a "plagiarism from fundamentalist Judaism". To start with...fundamentalism is a fairly recent appellation for movements of the 21st century. Who will he retroactively and arbitrarily assign this label to? The people following the Old Testament as written and supported for hundreds of years? The break-away groups? The Nazarites? The zealots? The Pharisees? The Sadducees? Don't feel bad if you don't know who some of those groups are...it seems fairly logical to assume you are not the only one.



Be that as it may, how Christianity could be a "plagiarism" is at best debatable and demonstrates a near-complete ignorance of the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles as well as what their intent was (and, rightly interpreted, is... since it is a continuing and continual mission).

To argue Christianity was an "accidental birth" is to ignore every claim made be the writers of the Scripture, the writings of the so-called "Church Fathers" and yes, even the writings of historians writing when the Apostles and disciples were current events, most notably Josephus and Tacitus. But to refer to those would undermine not only his current article but also a great deal of Hitchen's writings and it is pretty unlikely he would ever have the integrity to admit he is an intellectually dishonest windbag full of hate and bile...and dead wrong.

Although I have to agree with him about one thing...the ludicrous "Yule log" of the druids, the tree, and other pagan trappings that somehow became connected with the birth of Jesus mystify me as well. It is sad that the religious community is more vociferous about defending the unimportant parts (the complaints over trees being called things other than Christmas trees, for example) while completely subjecting the real meaning of Christmas...the fact that God became man, lived a sinless life, and left His teachings with us, in part in His own words and partially through the writings of his followers, in order that those who believe would follow His commandments which would lead to salvation...as wonderful as the Virgin birth was as one of many prophecies He fulfilled, it was in reality a relatively unimportant part of His life as the Son of Man. When will people figure that out and put the same energies they put into defending the trees into defending the faith?

But even on this point, Hitchens is not content and feels he must prove even further he has not done the research and has no clue what he writes about.

Everybody knows, furthermore, that there was no moving star in the east, that Quirinius was not the governor of Syria in the time of King Herod, that no worldwide tax census was conducted in that period of the rule of Augustus, and that no "stable" is mentioned even in any of the mutually contradictory books of the New Testament.

As for the moving star, that depends on who you believe...those who wrote about it whose writings have yet to have so much as a single thing demonstrated to be wrong, or...some moron writing 2 millenniums later who regularly babbles inanities and inaccuracies...

Quirinius, upon further review, WAS found and documented as governor of Syria in the time of King Herod. Recent finds showed there were two governors and one was, according to ROMAN records, a governor of Syria, one of 2. But Hitchens can't be bothered with the truth about that.

Ooh, Worldwide Census...once again, recently unearthed documents show that not only was a world wide census, but...wait for it...people were commanded to return to place of birth. Ironically, I recently completed a book going over these very things. It was easy to find...in fact, at Borders it is on the same shelf as some of Hitchen's work.

And finally, the oft-repeated, never demonstrated "mutually contradictory books"...and I will propose the same solution i have before. Show me one. Just one. That is all we need. Someone to show us where all these alleged contradictions are. I have read all 4 Gospels dozens, perhaps hundreds over the years. I have yet to find one. But no doubt Hitchens can help me out with the same intelligence and accuracy he showed in the rest of this article...

and for those who can't read sarcasm in that last sentence, essentially none.